Endangering the Troops By: Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com
Thursday, Aug 25, 2005 http://billoreilly.com/currentarticle
Every time I turn around, another anti-war person is saying how much he or she "supports" the troops. No matter how vicious the attack on the policy in Iraq or the Afghanistan situation or the proactive strategy to confront worldwide terror, it always seems there's a "support the troops" caveat at the end of the blistering dissent. Okay, fine, opposing the Iraq war doesn't mean disrespect for the military, that's true. But the benefit of the doubt only goes so far. Now there's a litmus test, a way to expose the folks who really don't support the troops no matter what they tell you.
As you know may know, the American Civil Liberties Union is demanding the release of all Abu Ghraib photographs and videotapes and any other damning evidence of prisoner abuse by the American military. The ACLU filed suit last year and the case is now coming to a head in New York City.
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified in front of the judge that any further public exposition of prisoner abuse could endanger the lives of U.S. and allied troops. He is livid about the ACLU's action.
Of course, Myers is right, and the Newsweek Quran fiasco proved it. Looney Muslims rampaged in a number of countries after that magazine falsely reported the holy book had been abused at Guantanamo Bay. At least 15 people were killed, hundreds injured.
Myers, himself, has seen the abuse images that have not been made public and says, "The release (of them) would aid the recruitment efforts and other activities of insurgent elements, weaken the new democratic governments of Iraq and Afghanistan ... and increase the likelihood of violence against the United States interests, personnel, and citizens worldwide."
But the ACLU does not care what Myers thinks - it wants to embarrass the Bush administration, and if people die because of that, tough.
This despicable attitude is being enabled by some interesting ACLU allies. In a "friend-of-the-court" brief, CBS, NBC, The New York Times and a few other media outfits urged the judge to reject Myers' argument and dump 87 Abu Ghraib photos and four videos into the public square.
As an American journalist, I am simply ashamed that some of my colleagues have sided with the ACLU and would risk further endangering Americans fighting this brutal war on terror. An action of this type would have been unthinkable during World War II. But, today, the media operates outside patriotic constraints or even public safety considerations.
What is the point of more Abu Ghraib pictures? We all know what happened there, how dismal and inexcusable it was. If the pictures advanced the story I could understand it, but this is just more of the same according to General Myers and his staff. And in a time of war, you give the benefit of any doubt to the top military commander, don't you?
The mainstream media, on the whole, has consistently underestimated the danger America is facing from the Islama-fascists. Most press outlets supported John Kerry for President when the Senator could not articulate a single strategy to fight the enemy other than enlisting the help of France and going to his website. That's why Kerry lost. He had absolutely no war plan.
The elite media doesn't have one, either. They love the Abu Ghraib story, the chaos in Iraq, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the "abuses" at Guantanamo Bay. They run with those stories all day long. But ask them how they would protect Americans from killers who obey no rules, who believe Allah wants them to murder babies, who are willing to die themselves while slaughtering innocent civilians - and you get blather about the "international community" and "constitutional rights." The truth is that the ACLU and its "friends" don't care if they help the jihadists and don't know how to defeat the enemy. Those who are demanding more abuse pictures are not supporting the troops and are not looking out for everyday Americans. They are putting our fighting people and U.S. civilians in even more danger. And there is no excuse for doing that.
